July 9 marked the 35th anniversary of one of the true milestones in video gaming history. On that fateful date in 1981, the original cabinet version of Nintendo’s seminal Donkey Kong arrived in American video arcades, ready to deprive the nation’s youth of its free time and pocket change. Prior to that, as difficult as it may be to believe now, Nintendo had found North America to be a tough nut to crack. Even the company’s successful Radar Scope, a hit in Japan, flopped in the U.S. Maybe, Nintendo thought, a game based on familiar cartoon characters might work. So the company tried to license a Popeye game with the classic Popeye-Olive-Bluto love triangle at the center. When that plan initially went belly-up, too, developer Shigeru Miyamoto took the project in a different direction. His game would be a sort of pixelated, playable version of King Kong. Instead of Popeye, there was a character known only as Jumpman, a squat, mustachioed fellow in overalls. (His name, Mario, would not be revealed for a couple more years.) Olive Oyl became a damsel in distress called Pauline. And Bluto? He was replaced by a lovesick gorilla. Sorry, Bluto.